The PEACE Study

Project Details

Prevention of psychological violence and coercive control across the lifecourse.

Through funding from the Oak Foundation, our research through the UNCOVER project revealed ground breaking evidence regarding patterns, associations and timelines in types of abuse in relation to women’s lifetime events. Women commonly have combined psychological, physical and sexual abuse patterns with psychological violence most commonly occurring before other types of violence.

We generated new evidence on reproductive coercion (RCA), its profound effect on women’s mothering and women’s support needs for different types of RCA. We uncovered nuances such as perpetrator motivations indicating this type of abuse is far more diverse and complex than what the evidence has previously suggested.

Experiences of psychological violence in older women are often overlooked in research, policy and practice and yet it is the most common type of abuse for women aged over 50 years. Many older women stay with their abusive partner and need strategies for how to survive and stay safe in this context.

The PEACE study aims to expand on our prior research to assist women across the life course experiencing psychological and domestic violence through early engagement in health settings.

Our objectives are to:

• Support women experiencing psychological and domestic violence across the life course through developing, evaluating and promoting in key settings a range of online tools for use by women and/or their friends.
• Equip and support health systems to appropriately and effectively identify domestic and psychological violence including reproductive coercion and coercive control;
• Prevent escalation of abuse; and better support women through developing and piloting tools and scripts for use by health practitioners.
• Enable improved identification and measurement of coercive control in research.

Through this project, we will:

• Create an online tool for friends of young women experiencing violence by a partner to help identify early warning signs of abuse and encourage help-seeking before abuse escalates
• Develop a resource package for RCA including a practitioner screening tool and scripts, and an online tool in antenatal and abortion clinics for use by women experiencing RCA to raise awareness, support decision-making and improve mother/child relationships and better support women.
• Explore development of an online support intervention for older women (>50 years) surviving abuse and choose to stay in an abusive relationship and create messaging to equip health practitioners.
• Design an outcome measure which will provide access to a world-first research abuse scale for coercive control.

Researchers

Prof Kelsey Hegarty, The University of Melbourne
A/Prof Laura Tarzia, The University of Melbourne
Ms Mandy McKenzie, The University of Melbourne
Dr Fiona Giles, The University of Melbourne
Dr Cynthia Brown, The University of Melbourne
Dr Katie Lamb, The University of Melbourne

www.saferfamilies.org.au/psychologicalviolence

safer-families@unimelb.edu.au

Collaborators

The Oak Foundation

Funding

Funding: Funded by the Oak Foundation AUD $565,117 Sep 2024 – Aug 2026